


A Time to Dance, A Time to Mourn

by SegaBarrett



Category: Askewniverse, Vulgar (2000)
Genre: Character has a psychotic break/episode and loved one(s) struggle to help/support them, Character is too mentally unwell to dress/groom themselves so friend/teammate/partner etc. helps, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:36:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28758942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: Syd is not always the best at friendship, but he's determined to be there for Will.
Relationships: Will Carlson/Syd Gilbert
Comments: 4
Kudos: 3
Collections: Bulletproof 20/21





	A Time to Dance, A Time to Mourn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [telm_393](https://archiveofourown.org/users/telm_393/gifts).



> Disclaimer: I do not own Vulgar and I make no money from this.
> 
> A/N: Song title from "Turn! Turn! Turn!" by the Byrds. 
> 
> A/N: #2 Due to the nature of the exchange, I tried to include anything it would be helpful to know about canon in the fic itself, so I hope everything makes sense.

Syd Gilbert has never considered himself a master of words. He tends to either stumble over them or manage to say the most inappropriate thing at any given time.

After all, he’s still banned from coming to Thanksgiving after he blurted out, “which asshole is it this time?” when his cousin announced her engagement.

And he’s still reeling from the eviction notice his grandmother had handed him last week. At least it would take her a while to actually put his stuff on the street, if the public access law show he’s been watching was any indication. 

_Take that, Grams._

So when he enters his best friend’s crappy apartment and finds it completely in shambles, he’s at a loss for what to do.

Well, not quite then. 

He knows what to do if one of the guys who tends to hang outside Will’s apartment broke in. Call the cops and get them to haul them right out and hopefully get back what they can before it’s been hocked to someone with incredibly low standards.

But when Will tells him everything, it’s everything that Syd can do to keep his jaw from hanging open as he hears – and, unbidden, pictures – every horrific detail.

He needs to fix it; of course he needs to fix it, even though he had agreed to give no suggestions and ask no questions. 

_Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies,_ Syd’s brain sings out unhelpfully, and he wants to call up the cops on the phone (which is laying, he sees later, busted on the front sidewalk) and get them over here and be on the case and march around and go undercover or whatever exactly is involved in something like this, because then he would be doing something at least.

A moment later is when Will breaks down and Syd wraps his arms around him, rocking Will’s warm body as gently as he can. This is what he can do in the moment, and he will have to settle for that.

*** 

He’s hesitant to get up from the bed when Will finally falls asleep. He’s found himself entangled with him, arm draped over his body and his head perched on Will’s shoulder. But he needs to get up to do the things he needs to do.

To do the things that Will will need to do. 

He starts by examining the broken drawer at the top of his dresser, then grabs a bag and goes around the bedroom and into the bathroom. All the broken glass gets swept up into the bag with a busted hairbrush from behind the bed. As for the rest of the carnage, what clearly can’t be salvaged he takes outside and places on the curb in the middle of the night, finding that the guys who hang outside of Will’s place are fast asleep on the lawn. 

At least it will be safe and relatively clean by the time Will wakes up in the morning.

***

Will doesn’t get up until one in the afternoon, however, and when he does it’s only to shamble over to the bathroom in a zombie-like daze. 

Syd, who’s taken up standing sentinel at the front of the bed, catches him on the way back and asks, “Why don’t we get something to eat? You wanna go down to the diner?”

Will lays back on the bed and shakes his head.

Syd attempts to cajole him by offering, “My treat” (though the twenty in his pocket had been meant to last him until next Tuesday), but he still gets nothing at all in response. 

Syd sits on the bed, letting it creak and leaning in towards Will as much as he can without seeming as if he’s leering or looming over him.

“What if I made you something?” he offers, even though he has no idea how to cook anything besides microwave pizza. “I could put some eggs together, maybe some bacon. Whatever you’ve got in the fridge, or I could go buy something.” Again, this is all wishful thinking and it’ll be lucky if he doesn’t set off the smoke alarm (if Will even has one, that is) but the important thing is getting Will up and about.

Insofar as he knows about any of this kind of thing, that is.

Will does look up, probably more out of morbid curiosity, but Syd considers it a win.

Now he’ll just have to figure out how to actually cook anything.

***

Syd has managed to drum up a plate of sunny-side-up eggs, a few slices of bacon, and two pieces of toast. The eggs and bacon came from a quick jaunt to the Quickstop – in Will’s car, which he won’t mind if Syd doesn’t tell him about it – and there had been a questionable loaf of bread in one of Will’s cabinets.

Will slumps down into the chair, even though he doesn’t look at Syd for a second, and then slowly nibbles on one of the pieces of toast.

Syd feels as if he could cut the silence with a knife, so he starts to talk. He complains about working with Tuott – “yeah, I mean, he means well, but he’s always high on something when he shows up and he got into some kind of a big fight with the manager, Lamont, and he’ll tell anyone about it who will listen, as if they haven’t already heard the damn story five times” – and how his grandmother is threatening to sue him for back rent – “back rent! I’m supposed to be family, Will, family.”

And that’s what finally gets Will to crack a smile. 

“I’ve heard this before,” he says, “But she always seems to end up taking you back in.”

“Well, who can say no to a charmer like me?”

Will chuckles as he cuts a piece of the white part off of the sunny-side up egg and scoops it into his mouth. Syd notices that still, the same way as when they were kids, he cuts around all the white section first before finally spiking the yolk. Some things never change.

***

The next day, Will gets up to eat, but won’t change his pants – he’s still without a shirt - or get into the shower.

“Listen, I know I’m one to talk,” Syd tells him, “But you should freshen up a little bit. It might make you feel a little better, kinda.”

“No, I took a bath… after…” And Will lets the “after” hang in the air because as Syd promised, what happened hasn’t left the room. But Will hasn’t, either.

“Well,” Syd says, “At least put on something different.” He opens Will’s closet and sorts through a few hangers of brightly colored suits and a neon orange tie before arriving at a simple T-shirt for a band Syd hasn’t heard of and a pair of khaki pants. “All right, Will. Hands up,” he instructs gently, and Will gives him a skeptical look but follows his instructions, and Syd slips the shirt over his arms. “I got these for you, too.” Syd wiggles the khakis and again, gets a small crack of a smile from Will, and he allows Syd to give a gentle, slow tug on his pants before pulling them off, rolling them into a ball, tossing them in the corner and then sliding the fresh pair on. “There. Don’t you feel better?”

“No, not really,” Will replies.

Syd pulls a face and sits beside him.

“I wish I knew what to do to help,” he tells Will, and starts to run his hand through Will’s still-damp hair, slowly unhooking a knot the same way he’ll do for himself when he’s on his way somewhere fancy, like Denny's, and can't be bothered to comb it. “But you know that I’m here, right? No matter what you need, I’m here.”

Will leans against him, letting Syd continue to groom him with his fingers.

“I think all I need is time,” he says, finally.

Syd presses a gentle kiss to his temple.

“Then I can give you that, too.”


End file.
